Doomed
by SkullRising
Summary: Bards invite destruction through their aspect. Knights use their aspect. What happens when a Bard of Mind finds a gullible Rage player? Let's just say there's a reason so many sessions fail because of player error. Rated at T on the verge of M for gore and heavy language.


"Doomed." The word fell unbidden from my dry lips; it was the only thing that seemed to apply. Kurt Tanner, the Heir of Blood and my best friend, lay dead at my feet, white bone jutting through the flesh and pale skin of his right arm, blood seeping from the gaping hole in his torso, his face still contorted in agony. His remaining dark brown eye bored deeply into the green of my own, lit by betrayal and shock. Bile stung the back of my throat, and my prized bardiche fell ungracefully from my long fingers, its thick handle and curved axe blade clattering on the granite under my feet. I turned my gaze to the ground and my now-broken wooden club, the splinters on its head matching those buried in Kurt's left eye.

Why did he have to come after me? He'd known what I was going to do, and he'd known it was for the best. He'd known it was the only way the alpha timeline might still have had a chance to succeed, and most of all he'd known I was paranoid; I'm a fucking Rage player! He must have known how I'd react.

Why?

"Because he was better than me," I growled. "Because he still thought I could be helped."

"Looks like Rita was right." I spat at the Seer's name. If she'd been clearer, this whole damn situation could've been avoided. If she'd been clearer, our session mightn't have been fucked over. If she'd been clearer, our friends might still be fucking alive.

If she'd been clearer, I might've been dead before I reached god-tier.

I knew what would happen. Rita would go back in time, as her aspect mandated, and make sure either I or Doug, the traitorous bastard we called the Bard of Mind, was killed off early. The alpha timeline would have another shot at success, which knowing my team probably meant finding a new way to fuck it up. This timeline would stay as a dead-end, and I'd be left with only one means of escape.

I looked back at Kurt's body. As horrible as it may seem, his death really meant nothing in regards to the session. We'd be fucked whether he was dead or not, but the idea that I couldn't even control myself when the fucking peacekeeper, the guy who made foes turn traitor and kill each other to protect him, was trying to placate me scared the shit out of me. I wasn't scared of myself, no.

I was scared to death of Doug.

He'd been a manipulative shithead even before the game started, spreading rumors and breaking people away from each other to serve his own twisted little ends. We'd only ever invited him to play in the first place because he didn't have many friends, and now I knew why. Now I understood that all he'd done, from the moment he entered the game, was cause insanity. He'd planted whispers in our heads, little threads of mistrust, until he had a fucking network of madness and suspicion with which to play. He made us tense around each other, made us wonder when exactly someone would stab us in the back. He'd made Lisa, our Thief of Space and one of my closest friends, hate me, and he made me, the Knight of Rage, despise her.

Lisa antagonized me, as she often had before, but now she was harsher. Gone were the jokingly sarcastic jabs, the lighthearted remarks. Now she used every tool at her disposal to annoy me, infuriate me, and sometimes physically harm me- stealing the space around me and crushing me against a wall or floor. Rita and Tony, our Prince of Void, became increasingly aloof, and Tony's normal habit of calmly educating others on matters he himself knew little about became angry and offensive, as if he was enraged that we didn't always "know the full truth", as he put it. When he hit god-tier it just got worse and worse now that he'd reached near-immortality.

Kurt had been the only one who could calm us, keep us together. Thinking back, I now realize how little Doug had ever said anything in Kurt's presence, as if he knew that his seeds of doubt would fall on rock when the Heir of Blood was around to resolve any disputes. Just being around the skinny motherfucker and his light, lilting voice was enough to make even me take a step back and think things over.

Pretty early on in the game, well before we really knew what we were doing, Rita started seeing things. These predictions all came true, of course, but they were always too unspecific to figure out until after the events they entailed had already come to pass. One of her weirder ones involved a dream of hers, in which she saw through blurry glass that a minstrel would split the group apart through a soldier. Of course it all makes fucking perfect sense now, but Rita never explained her prophecies, always said they were too complicated for anyone but a seer to understand.

That was bullshit of course, but we never thought it was a big deal. The minstrel was probably some huge boss enemy like the king or queen, since Tony had thrown his idiotic jester hat into the kernelsprite and consequently made all our foes look like colorful prancing jackasses. The soldier was probably something like a mini-boss: something big enough to cause an issue, but not dangerous enough to really beat us into the dirt. We could deal with being split up for a while, anyway; we figured we'd just be moved to different worlds and we'd reunite before the final battle.

Moral of the story: teenagers suck at determining prophecies.

When tensions had grown tighter, I'd taken to talking to Doug in the evenings. At first it was because I thought I knew exactly what he was doing: pissing off Tony with his inherent need to argue every little matter that popped into his blond-framed skull. I'd gone to talk to him about it, to try and get him to shut his damn trap, and found myself locked in conversation with one of the most charismatic people I'd ever met. I don't even remember what it was we talked about, but I remember nodding along and agreeing with him about everything.

Whatever he said just seemed to make sense: Rita using her foresight to determine everyone's fate and just waiting for us to fuck up so she could go back and be the hero of our timeline by saving the alpha. Tony pretending he knew what he was doing so he could pretend there wasn't a big fucking black hole in place of a brain. Lisa pissing me off because she knew that as the Space player we were doomed without her.

But if he ever mentioned Kurt, I sure as hell don't remember it. Maybe even my idiotic brain wouldn't put up with the idea of him betraying any of us. Don't get me wrong, Kurt wasn't fucking perfect. He wasn't too bright, always thought he knew exactly what we had to do next, always thought he should be the leader, even if the rest of us agreed we didn't need one. He was so fucking overconfident that once he reached god tier, he didn't even bother carrying a weapon around with him. The silver dagger he'd carried before then now adorned my belt, a gift from my old friend. As if I needed anymore shit in my Strife portfolio with my bardiche and club.

All the same, it didn't change the fact that Kurt had what he thought were our best interests at heart. He'd never insulted anyone, at least intentionally. I get the feeling he saw us all like children, people you need to protect because you know they're not nearly smart enough to function on their own. And yeah, he was a little overbearing sometimes but he was dumb enough and harmless enough that we just let him believe it. In all honesty, he was the biggest child among us.

Doug and I continued our nighttime discussions for maybe two weeks, and I remember getting more and more pissed at the team every day, bringing all my complaints and my rants back to Doug in the evening. That rat-nosed bastard would encourage that slow-burning flame, saying somebody needed to put them in their place.

Then one day, I decided he was right.

Despite our minimal intellect, we'd managed to gather on Doug's planet, the Land of Granite and Sulfur, and 'appropriated' a building from the locals, a bunch of dark blue ants with egos to rival Kurt's. We'd started gathering frogs for the mandatory amphibian breeding program and basically let our Space player pluck the little shits out of existence in one place and drop them down right where we needed them. Lisa, Rita, and Tony took care of most of the work while Kurt went around subjugating the locals and I stewed in my aspect, venting to Doug before bed every night for about a week.

I went to check on the Genesis Frog progress one night, and that's where things took a sharp turn downhill. Rita and Tony didn't even look up when I walked into the room of smooth gray stone, but the Thief of Space scowled through the mess of tangled brown hair that hung over her face. I made a rude hand gesture and made my way over to the Prince, his wire-framed glasses almost falling off his flat, pig-like nose as he craned his neck over a book that probably contained instructions for the breeding program. As I began to ask a few basic questions- I didn't know enough about the project to ask anything too specific- I noticed Rita's tiny brunette frame beginning to inch towards the stone door. If she was making any effort to hide her aversion to me, I sure as hell didn't see it. Yeah, it ticked me off a little, but I got that a lot and could keep it in check.

I decided to keep making uncomfortable small talk with Tony, but it was clear from his even-more-aggressive-than-usual tone that he didn't want me there either. Alright, I supposed, fair enough. It wasn't like I'd been too friendly with either of them even before the game started, and as I held the building Rage in my gut back once again I forced myself to admit that I hadn't exactly been cordial during the session, either.

"Alright, well, I guess I'd better leave you guys alone," I said, trying not to set off the already volatile situation. I needed to get out of there before I did something incredibly stupid, and that's what I planned to do as I went for the door.

But of course, I had to go and provoke the Thief with another rude gesture and passing glare on my way out.

"Y'know what?" Lisa shouted. "Fuck you, you hypocritical asshole! You walk around pissed at everyone and acting like you're the victim when people get angry at you!"

"You're one to talk!" I spat, fists clenching till my knuckles turned white. "You fucking steal grist from me, get pissed when I call you out on it, and then use _my _grist to build your pointless little toys and even more ridiculously expensive weaponry that you never use while you run me into a wall and act like I won't respond!"

"Excuse me for using my brain unlike you, dumbass! Yeah, I run you into shit from time to time, but don't act like you don't deserve it, Mr. Mightier-than-thou Rage player! At least I don't have to run around with a wannabe badass axe to pretend I'm tough; compensate much?"

"Using your brain? You're the one who stole the space between you and a wall and broke your arm when you smashed into it!"

"Fucking dipshit!"

"Bitch!"

"Shut your fucking mouth, you angry, impotent fuckass! You don't even deserve to be alive! You should have died with the rest of our useless fucking planet, you stupid piece of shit!"

I snapped.

My Strife portfolio opened and dropped my club into my hand in one quick motion. I charged Lisa with intent to kill, the deformed weapon raised above my head to strike. Fortunately for her, Tony reacted faster than her and trapped my arms straight in the air behind my head as I screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Coward! _I will fucking end you, do you fucking hear me?!"_

I struggled against Tony's hold as much as I could, writhing and kicking out with everything I had.

"_Let me go!"_

The back of my head slammed into Tony's nose as my bony elbows crashed down on his upper arms, smashing his glasses, breaking the hold, and probably his nose. I turned to finish him off but found Lisa's long, ebony knife buried in my left shoulder. I howled and dropped my club as I wrenched my body around to drive my right fist into her chin. The blow took her by surprise and left her open for more.

I continued my assault, slamming my fists into her midsection as she struggled to draw another blade, hot blood streaming down my arm and mingling with the wretched fluid from her mouth and nose. I felt her ribs crack, felt the muscle give out underneath the heavy blows. I laughed, spittle flying from my mouth.

And suddenly I stopped, frozen in place by excruciating pain in my stomach. I looked down to find Tony's silver spear piercing straight through my lower abdomen, the tip drenched in my blood.

The Prince of Void ripped his weapon from my body and brought it back around in a wide swing, the shaft slamming into my back and dropping me to the floor where I grasped at the wound in a desperate, futile attempt to close the wound and stop the bleeding.

Tony crossed to Lisa and helped the mutilated Thief to her feet. Her Strife deck dropped another dagger into her hand, this one long, straight, and jade green. She dragged herself over to my agonized form, raised the blade above her head. Rage took over.

She dropped the blade as my long legs swung into the back of her knees, taking her by surprise. I caught the weapon in a reverse grip, the blade parallel to my forearm as she fell towards me. I grabbed her opposite wrist as fast as I could and we wrestled for control of the dagger.

I saw my chance.

Lisa's arm stretched taught by my grip on her wrist, I stabbed at the inside of her elbow, feeling the blade collide with bone, instantly disabling her. I sent her to the ground with a slam from the finger guard and stood to meet Tony who pointed his weapon cautiously at my chest.

I could see the fear in his eyes, the hesitation, and tutted. Being scared was probably the worst thing you could be around me, my element giving me total control over my terrified opponent. I reversed my grip again to a more aggressive hold on Lisa's dagger and pressed closer, backing him up to the wall with a sadistic grin. He held me off as long as he could, using the long range of his spear to his advantage. Tony shouted, lunging for me.

I stepped forward and inside with my left leg, grasping desperately at the shaft and ignoring the tip as it gored my side again. I got ahold and yanked back on the spear, and Toby came with it.

Lisa's dagger met him halfway.

The blade plunged deep into the muscle of his diaphragm and out his back, cutting through his god tier tunic and muscular frame like a hot knife through butter. I grabbed his dark blue hood with my left hand and ripped the dagger out, only to impale him again with a wet squelch. Tony's head fell limply on my right shoulder, my bloodied hand buried in his rib cage. He coughed, thick red blood seeping from between his teeth and onto my robe and cape, but I smiled and released my grip on both my hood and the dagger.

Tony fell with an ungraceful thump, the weapon still buried in his chest. He lay there, barely alive, and rapidly bleeding out. I turned to face Lisa once again, the Thief rising shakily to her feet as she nursed the probably concussion my last blow caused and tried her best to ignore her mauled arm. Those defiant green eyes stared daggers as her final and favorite weapon dropped into her hand.

An unmarked steel-gray cutlass, about two feet long and wickedly curved, unadorned but for the Space insignia engraved on the pommel, its black finger guard protecting her already bloody hand. I slowly made my way over to my club and gripped its warped handle, the familiar weight so perfect in my hand. The excessive adrenaline caused by my Aspect kept me too high to feel much of the otherwise intolerable pain, a doped-up grin on my face as I circled my former friend. I pointed the club at her head, imagining how _incredible _it would feel when the brutish weapon collided with her fragile little neck and feeling her bones crack underneath the blow. One hit, that's all it would take.

We leapt at each other, eyes locking, and I could tell all those fond memories of each other were running through her head, saw the tears forming in her eyes. Hesitation was her downfall.

As her cutlass stopped inches from my chest, my club was already on its way and collided with her wrist. The bones snapped like twigs, weapon falling from her grip and clattering on the floor. She lay there with it, screaming in agony, in pain.

In Rage.

One more blow and her brain decorated the floor. My weapon disappeared back into my portfolio as I checked to see if Skaia had granted Tony a second chance at life. Unfortunately for him, the bloody pool under his corpse didn't look like it had any intention of disappearing. The berserker grin on my face was still there, stretching my features into grotesque forms of mirth, my teammates' blood endeavoring to cover the unsavory expression without much success.

….

My joy faded in moments, my happiness turning to anguish as I realized what I'd done. Tears streamed down my face, and the only words I could choke out through the veils of mucus were, "I'm sorry."

I don't know how long I was there, crying my eyes out and punching myself so hard I swear I bruised a rib. The minutes seemed to flow faster than the tears streaming from my eyes as I muttered that statement like a mantra, hoping to whatever gods there may be in this fucked-up world we call a game that they could be brought back. My wounds had healed themselves as they always did, a couple new scars for my collection. Kurt's dagger at my side, gleaming in the low fluorescent light, seemed my only escape.

And then the Bard walked in.

"Shit man, you did a number on these guys," he laughed, his gaunt, pale face and bright blue eyes boring into my own. "Fuckers deserved it," he chuckled as he spat at Tony's corpse. I scowled, but Doug had already turned to Lisa, his skinny form almost bent over with sadistic laughter.

The burning Rage didn't return. I was calm, or about as calm as I ever was, and didn't say a word as my bardiche dropped into my hands, but the Bard heard the slam of its heavy handle on the floor and turned. The horrific weapon was often enough to send imps running, the shaft six feet of heavy metal and oak, the axe head wickedly curved and split halfway down and ending in two spear points, the separate pieces connected by a latticework of metal that created my 'swordbreakers'- little holes I used to catch blades and disarm my enemies. The other side was balanced with a heavy metal hook reminiscent of a beast's fang.

"Woah, woah, bro," Doug growled, drawing his straight obsidian sword and unslinging the round steel shield on his back. "You still high over there? The fuckin' job's done. Now put that thing away, alright?"

"You fucking traitor," I hissed. I grabbed the upper shaft of my weapon in my right and the lower in my left, holding the bardiche like a quarterstaff. "You made me do this. You're as much to blame for this as I am."

"Blame? Dude, there's no blame here. The fuckers needed to die; now they're dead. Problem solved!"

"Our session is fucked, shithead. We're lucky Rita had the sense to get out of here."

"Our session was _always _fucked, dude. You really think this bunch of idiots could win at an unwinnable game? Fat fuckin' chance, bro."

"Better pray, motherfucker," I seethed, ignoring him, "'cause I think you're gonna meet your maker here in a minute."

"Think, asshole! We got a chance to live, alright? Those idiots are dead and Kurt's already subjugated all the locals. We can literally rule this planet; there's nothing stopping us now!"

"Except the Black King," I spat. "You think that motherfucker just decided to forget about us? Yeah-fucking-right! He's probably on his way right now, and we just doomed us all! _You're gonna fuckin' pay, bitch!"_

I leapt forward and his shield met my blade. I swiftly blocked his counterattack with the other end of my weapon and dropped low, swiping at his shins with the pointed tip. He leapt out of the way, his skinny legs just narrowly out of my reach.

"Calm down, dumbass!" He spat, bringing his shield up. "I've already fucking told you, we've been screwed from the beginning. All I'm doing is making our stay a little easier." His shield deflected my strike again and we circled slowly, our backs almost to the walls. "If you won't see reason, I guess you're out of the picture."

Doug lunged and I blocked his oncoming strike, but his shield crashed into my chest. I stumbled and he seized the chance, slicing through the back of my thigh, but I gave as good as I got. My weapon's unusual design again gave me a bonus as I hooked the head around his ankle and sent him to the floor. I went to spear him, but his shield saved him again and he returned to his feet.

I turned the bardiche in my hands so that its hooked fang faced Doug. We circled each other like wrestlers just before they clashed, me nursing my wounded leg and him struggling to maintain his composure. Finally my rage was building, my bloodlust setting in. Guess it showed how much of an asshole I am that only a personal injury could piss me off. We closed in on each other, careful to avoid the bodies as we kept our eyes locked on each other.

Doug went for me again, but now I was ready. I blocked again, but as he brought his shield up I brought the hook down on top of it. In no time it was out of Doug's hand and spinning lazily on the floor. That got him scared, got me excited. He grabbed his sword with his other hand and I could see the panic setting in. He wasn't a fighter; he was a fucking Bard, a manipulator. He had no chance against me, my only marketable skill being killing.

His next attack lost him his weapon, the sword locked by a swordbreaker. I swung up and around in a semicircle, throwing the offending blade away and then lunging forward to drive my bardiche's long spearhead into his chest.

"Motherfucker," he choked out, impaled on my prized weapon. I withdrew and he fell to his knees clutching desperately at the wound, but we both knew he was dead. One broad, brutal swing sent the axe crashing into his torso, nearly splitting him in half.

Doug was dead before he hit the ground, but I didn't care. No, I strode up to him again and raised my weapon high. Like a sadistic executioner I severed his head from his neck and threw it across the room. It impacted with a satisfying _crack. _

But something was wrong.

My rage didn't start dissipating like it usually did. It just kept growing, threatening to consume any sanity I had left just as it had when I killed Lisa and Tony. I knew I was gone, a dead man walking. Rage may have saved me, but even a god-tiered aspect has its limits and if I died now there was no chance I'd be brought back. I guess Skaia had had enough of my shit and I couldn't blame it.

Still, adrenaline was still racing and I knew it would only get worse. I needed to get out of there, needed escape, needed time to think. My bardiche disappeared and I stumbled for the door on my partially-healed limb. I slipped on one of the pools of blood and found my face next to Lisa's. Despite my horror and regret, some part of me, the Raging part of me, made me laugh humorlessly, more just an expelling of air than expression of amusement. I made it out of the lab and started to run, the smell of sulfur nauseating and the hard stone unforgiving under my feet.

When I was sure I was far from the lab, I dropped on my stomach right there, panting, struggling to think straight. Rita was going to live, I knew that. Everybody else but Kurt was dead, and he was probably off still making friends. I had two options.

I could wait it out and see how long it took for me to die. That last fight had ripped open the scar on my stomach and I could feel the blood dribbling down my shirt. Rage was keeping it at bay for now, but it wasn't gonna last.

Or, I could take my own life and make it quick. Tough choice, right? A long, painful death or something short and painless of my choosing. My club dropped into my hand. I looked it up and down and smirked. It had been my first weapon to alchemize, mixing an old baseball bat with a broken woodcutting axe to create the hideous piece of shit that had taken Lisa's life. The blade wasn't sharp enough to slit my throat or anything else with it; it was just a dull, heavy axe head.

Rage made me want to put it away or destroy it out of self-preservation. I knew and therefore it knew what I was planning, and it made little difference that I couldn't really do anything with the club. I clenched my fists. I had to end this shit fast, before it became impossible.

I was about to pull out my bardiche when Kurt's soothing voice snapped me out of it.

"Hey, what happened?"

No. _No. __**Fucking no!**_ _Don't you fucking pull this shit on me, Skaia! _

A soft hand fell on my shoulder. I gripped it like a lifeline and twisted around, spraining the limb immediately.

"What the fuck are you-"

My knee smashed into the underside of his elbow as my Rage-fueled arm bent it in the other direction, utterly destroying the bone and throwing shards up through Kurt's skin as he screeched in pain and betrayal. The club came next, and I smashed into Kurt's face harder than I'd ever hit anything before. It snapped, sending splinters into the air and into Kurt's eye. Blinded and screaming, the Heir of Blood flailed madly as my bardiche materialized. One slash and he fell to the granite, missing one leg.

"Please, man, you know me!" Kurt sobbed. "Let me help you, please!" His desecrated form raised his unbroken arm as if asking to shake my hand as my axe came down again.

….

So, now you know where I stand. It's been an hour since I killed my best friend, and I can feel the Rage still stirring in me as I write this memo. If you're me from another timeline, just know we're an asshole. Maybe this'll be some kind of warning.

But if I'm being totally honest, I know what this is. It's my note. In a minute here I'll slit my throat with Kurt's dagger. Fitting, dontcha think? He wanted peace, and his only weapon is ensuring I get some. I wonder if there's a Hell in this game? If so, that's where I'm headed. But who knows, maybe Doug'll be there with me and I'll get to see him suffer with me. I think I could stand Hell if they'll allow me that simple pleasure.

If anybody from another timeline gets their hands on this, a piece of advice. If Doug and I are both alive, kill Doug and keep away from me. If I snap, don't hold back. Kill me then and there. Don't hesitate and don't freak out, because it's only when you're scared that you have any cause to be afraid. If I'm dead and Doug's not, kill him.

Whatever you do, do not trust the Bard. Good luck, motherfuckers.

Sincerely,

Paul Pietri, Knight of Rage


End file.
